The present invention relates to a tape recorder capable of detecting and discriminating the positions of operating buttons by a finger touch.
Recently, tape recorders have tended to be miniaturized and electronized and to use touch-type operating buttons as controls for recording and reproduction.
A superminiature tape recorder of this type in accordance with the prior art includes a tape recorder body 1 as shown in FIG. 1, which is arranged with a cassette tape chamber 2 and a loud speaker hole 3 in front and provided with touch-type operating buttons 4 (REC, STOP, PLAY, REW, FF in the illustrated embodiment) corresponding to each kind of operating mode between the cassette chamber 2 and the loud speaker hole 3. In this case, each kind of the touch-type operating buttons 4, as shown in FIG. 2a, are arranged along the widthwise direction of the tape recorder body 1 and as shown in FIG. 2b, arranged in line along a button support stand 5 which is slightly recessed.
In such tape recorder, therefore, the tape recorder body 1 is gripped by one hand in the same manner as that in which an electronic calculator is generally used and the buttons are operated by the finger of the other hand as the position of each operating button 4 is confirmed by sight.
If this tape recorder, however, is used in a dark room, it becomes difficult to distinguish the position of the operating buttons and each kind of operation, and it is liable to cause misoperation. This means that particularly when the recording (REC) operating button 4 is operated by mistake, the recorded contents will be mistakenly erased, which is to be clearly avoided.